Watch TV on your own time

What do you do when you miss the season finale of your favorite TV show because you have to study for a bio exam? Or if you decide you want to be a Gossip Girl junkie, but the first season is never on TV. Thanks to the Internet and technologies, recordings of TV series can be found in a variety of sources: so which are the best?

1. Hulu
Pros: Hulu allows you to watch most network shows for free during the week after they’re aired. This makes it easy to catch up on a show if, say, you miss an episode because of sports practice and you want to make it up immediately.
Cons: Not all shows are available on Hulu and some are only available for HuluPlus (paying) users. Also, only a few episodes of each show are typically available for free, which makes starting a show from season 1 nearly impossible.

2. On Demand
Pros: On Demand television shows are free for Comcast cable users and you can watch them on your TV instead of on the small screen of your laptop.
Cons: Like Hulu, On Demand shows are only available for limited windows of time and entire seasons are almost never available.

3. Buying used disks on Amazon
Pros: You can finally watch the entirety of whatever season of Gossip Girl you want! Usually, the prices of used copies of TV series are inexpensive and they can be purchased from reliable sellers.
Cons: It costs a little extra money, but is, in my opinion, well worth it.

4. Recording it yourself
Pros: You get to watch exactly what you want for no extra cost.
Cons: Unless a marathon of a certain show is aired, you can only tape individual episodes.

5. Netflix
Pros: Most of the time you can watch entire seasons of shows either instant or on DVD.
Cons: Many times, the disks for TV shows have waiting lists because they’re under high demand. Also, while watching instantly is convenient, your laptop doesn’t exactly provide the ultimate viewing experience.

Overall, the best ways to watch TV shows are via Hulu and buying used disks. Hulu is fantastic for watching individual episodes, while used copies of shows are great for watching entire seasons (without hogging your family’s Netflix DVD choices).